Underground electrical service entrance

It is an underground service connected to an overhead Hydro-Québec line. The cable runs down the pole in a conduit, goes underground, then comes up to the house’s meter base.

When the Hydro-Québec line is overhead, the default service is overhead too: a mast on the wall and wires from the pole. Going underground is the owner’s choice, and the owner supplies the service, at their own cost.

The result: no more mast or wires on the wall. In exchange, it takes a trench and more work than an overhead service.

Hydro-Québec prefers to connect on one of its own poles when all the conditions are met. That is often not possible: the pole’s owner (Bell, Télébec or another) must give written consent, and always refuses if the pole already carries an underground connection or a transformer. Most of the time, Hydro-Québec also has to raise its wires, at your cost.

In that case, the owner installs their own pole. On our jobs, that is always the case. This pole belongs to you and is part of your electrical installation. Hydro-Québec never works on private poles. The electrical contractor sets it.

To be connected, the private pole must be:

• 30 m or less from the Hydro-Québec line or the lot line;
• 3 m or less from a drivable way (a driveway counts), reachable at all times by a bucket truck;
• class 7 or better, buried at least 1.7 m;
• free of any transformer or other equipment.

Based on Hydro-Québec’s E.21-10 standard (Livre bleu), sections 2.7.2.5 and 2.8.

On this overhead-to-underground service, the grey conduits run along the pole, drop into the trench and continue to the house under construction. Once the trench is backfilled, the cables are underground.

The excavation can be done by us or by your contractor. Laying the conduit and cables, however, is reserved for a master electrician: a licence is always required for electrical work, even in your own home.